It happens a lot to me. We're sitting around a diner table, or a get-together of some kind, and the inevitable PC question comes up. I really don't mind answering them (really, I don't), but the conversation often drifts into a complaint session. One of the topics that I hear often is this one.
I also hear about it when we send digital photos to family and friends. I have a fairly high-resolution digital camera and even the inexpensive cameras these days have lots of megapixels. This means that the image files are big. Now, don't get started (yet) on what "big" means - I'll cover that. But when you send one of those "big" photos to someone, the comment often comes back "Nice photo, but why did you make it so big? All I could see was the dog's nose unless I scrolled around". And they blame you for sending them a picture that is too "big".
Obviously, something is not right here. I think people tend to expect that things should just "work" correctly. And lots of times they do, but in this particular case there is an issue. So, let's try to answer this one; please keep a copy of this column (note to wife) so you can pull it out and show someone when the inevitable question gets asked!
The first thing you have to realize is that there is no such thing as "size" when it comes to digital photos. If anything, the only "size" that a digital photo has is the size of the sensor in the camera when the photo was taken. This is about the size of a fingernail. So, if PC photos were actually shown on the screen in their real size, you could hardly see it! But, of course, it wasn't meant to work that way.
It all depends on which program is showing (or printing) the photo. Different programs display the photos in different ways. One way, for example, would be to make each pixel (dot) in the photo be shown by one pixel on the screen. This seems easy enough for the program to do, but if you look at the numbers you will see that there are often far more pixels in the photo than there are on the PC screen. Most screen have about 1024 or 1280 pixels horizontally, but many digital photos have 2500 pixels horizontally, or more. If this occurs, the photo obviously won't fit on the screen, and that is why the photo looks "big". Big, in this case, means lots of pixels.
The same is true for printers. The printer software has to fit the digital image to the size of the paper being printed, otherwise the results are useless. The term for this is "scaling". Scaling is the process of fitting an image to the desired viewing size.
So now to last night's dinner party problem. The issue is that the email programs that many people use (especially Outlook Express) do not scale. Should they? Could they? Sure. But they don't.
The answer is that you need to have installed on your PC a program specially designed for displaying photos on your screen. The one I recommend is called IrfanView. Irfan (first name) is Yugoslavian, and he has written an excellent program and makes it available for free. For years, it has been the best photo viewer around. You can get IrfanView from www.download.com (search for Irfan). Download and install the program. When it asks about file associations, select the button for All Image Files.
With IrfanView installed, all you have to do to view a photo attached to an email (or on your hard drive) is to just double-click (i.e. Open) the file.
One final note: The first time IrfanView opens the photo, you still may not see it fully. Go to the menu and select View / Display Options and click on "Fit Images to Desktop". There are other options here that you may want to play with.
So, clip this column and keep it handy. You may be at a dinner party some night and...
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)